How do I rent out my house?

Key points

• To rent out your house, first get your mortgage lender's permission (consent to let) or move to a buy-to-let mortgageBuy-to-let mortgageA mortgage for a home you'll let. The lender decides how much to lend mainly on the rent, using the interest cover test, rather than on your salary, and usually wants a deposit of at least 25%.. Then tell your insurer, do the safety checks, protect the deposit and tell HMRC about the rent.
• On our example, a £180,000 home with a £90,000 mortgage let for £1,100 a month leaves £498 a month before tax. After tax, that's £4,778 a year for a basic-rate taxpayer and £2,683 for a higher-rate one.
• Keeping it while you buy your next home usually means the higher rates of stamp dutyHigher rates of stamp dutyThe extra 5% of stamp duty in every band when you buy a home and already own one, or buy through a company. It applies from £40,000. Wales has a separate table of higher rates for Land Transaction Tax instead.: £15,000 more on a £300,000 home in England, which you get back if you sell the old one within 3 years.
• Sell within 9 months of moving out and there's usually no capital gains taxCapital gains taxTax on the gain when you sell a property you don't live in: the sale price less what you paid, buying and selling costs and improvements. It's 18% or 24% after the first £3,000 of gains each tax year, reported and paid within 60 days.. Let it for longer and part of the gain becomes taxable.
• In England, tenancies no longer have an end date. To get your home back to sell or live in, you give 4 months' notice, and not in the first year.

Should you rent out your house or sell it?

Letting your old home can make sense if the rent covers the mortgage and costs with room to spare, you might want to move back one day, and you're ready to be a landlord. Selling is simpler: the money is yours now, tax-free, and your next home avoids the stamp dutyStamp dutyThe tax on buying a home in England (Stamp Duty Land Tax): 0% up to £125,000, 2% to £250,000, 5% to £925,000, 10% to £1.5 million and 12% above, each rate on the part of the price in its band. A buy-to-let or second home pays 5% more in every band, and buyers who don't live in the UK pay 2% more. surcharge. Run the numbers on both before you decide.

A move for work, moving in with a partner or a slow sale are good reasons to look at letting, but none of them makes it a good investment. The question to ask is what the money tied up in the house would earn as a rental. On our example, selling would leave £86,000 after £4,000 of selling costs and paying off the mortgage. Kept and let, the house earns £5,972 a year before tax: 6.6% on the £90,000 of it that's yours. Our deal check calls 5% or more a good return, so this clears the bar before tax. After tax, it's 5.3% for a basic-rate taxpayer and 3.0% for a higher-rate one. Is buy-to-let still worth it? compares returns like these with savings.

On top of that comes whatever the house's price does.

Tool for this step: the deal check. Put in what your home is worth and the rent to see what it would earn as a rental.

How much rent can I get for my house?

Look at what similar homes nearby have actually let for, not just what's advertised, then ask two or three local letting agents to value it. They see which homes let quickly and at what price. Our area pages show the average private rent in every local authority in England and Wales, from government data, as a check on the agents' figures.

Price it to let rather than to sit empty. On our example, one empty month costs £1,100, the same as charging £92 a month less for a whole year. Since 1 May 2026, landlords in England must advertise the rent and can't take offers above it, and rent can only rise once a year, with notice. So the figure you start at matters.

Am I allowed to rent out my house?

Yes, if your mortgage lender agrees and, for a leaseholdLeaseholdOwning a home for a set number of years under a lease, with the building owned by a freeholder. Most flats are leasehold. You usually pay a service charge and sometimes ground rent, and a short lease makes a home harder to sell or mortgage. flat, the lease allows it. A residential mortgage is lent on the basis that you live in the home, so you need your lender's permission before you let it. Letting without it can break the mortgage's terms. Some lenders give consent to let on your current deal; others want you to switch to a buy-to-let mortgage.

• Consent to let. You keep your mortgage and the lender agrees to the letting, often for a set time. Some charge a fee or add to your interest rate while it's let. It's usually the cheapest route if you're partway through a fixed rateFixed rateA mortgage rate that stays the same for a set time, often 2 or 5 years. When it ends the loan moves to the lender's standard variable rate unless you take a new deal., as switching mortgages could mean an early repayment chargeEarly repayment charge (ERC)A fee for paying off a mortgage, or too much of it, during its deal: a percentage of the loan that usually falls each year of the fix. Moving the mortgage to a new home (porting) can avoid it.. See Early repayment charges and porting your mortgage.
• Let-to-buy. You remortgageRemortgageReplacing your mortgage with a new one on the same property, from a new lender or your current one (a product transfer). People do it for a better rate or to release equity. the home you're leaving onto a buy-to-let mortgage, usually borrowing more to raise the deposit for your next home. The new lender sizes the loan on the rent, not your salary, with the same rent test as any buy-to-let. How much can I borrow for buy-to-let? explains it.

Ask your lender before you move out, not after you've found a tenant: if they refuse consent, you'll need time to remortgage.

Can I change my mortgage to buy-to-let?

Yes, by remortgaging to a buy-to-let mortgage, with your own lender or a new one. It's the let-to-buy route above, even if you don't borrow more. The lender sizes the loan on the rent, wants a deposit of usually at least 25% of the value, and may charge more than your current rate. If you're partway through a fix, check the early repayment charge first.

What does renting out your house really earn?

Here's our example home both ways: keeping the £90,000 mortgage with consent to let, or a let-to-buy remortgage to 75% of its value, releasing £45,000 towards your next home. To compare like with like, both are interest-onlyInterest-only mortgageYou pay only the interest each month (the loan × the yearly rate ÷ 12) and owe the whole loan at the end. at 5%; your own rate may differ, especially if your lender charges more for consent.

The costs are our deal check's usual ones: a letting agent at 10% of the rent, 5% for repairs, £20 a month of landlord insurance and 2 empty weeks a year.

The tax is the same both ways. In your own name, mortgage interest earns a 20% tax credit rather than coming off the rent (Section 24). But HMRC's guidance is that interest on extra borrowing spent on your own new home isn't a cost of the letting. So the let-to-buy loan's extra £45,000 costs £2,250 a year in interest and earns no credit at all. Some advisers argue otherwise, based on the home's value when you first let it; take advice before relying on that.

Let-to-buy can still be the right move when it's how you fund the next home. Just count the extra interest as a cost of your new home, not of the rental. On the lender's rent test, £1,100 a month supports a loan of up to £192,000 for a basic-rate taxpayer and £165,000 for a higher-rate taxpayer on a 5-year fix tested at 5.5%, so the £135,000 loan passes.

Will I pay more stamp duty on my next home?

Usually, yes. If you keep your old home when you buy the next one, you'll own two homes, so the new one pays the higher rates of stamp duty: 5% on top of the normal rates in England. On a £300,000 home that's £20,000 instead of £5,000, or £15,000 more.

You can claim the extra back if you sell or give away the old home within 3 years of buying the new one. The claim has to reach HMRC within 12 months of the sale, or 12 months of the deadline for the new home's stamp duty return if that's later. If you or your husband, wife or civil partner keep any share of the old home, there's no refund.

In Wales, Land Transaction TaxLand Transaction Tax (Wales)Wales's version of stamp duty. Buy-to-lets and second homes pay the higher rates, from £40,000: 5% up to £180,000, 8.5% to £250,000, 10% to £400,000, 12.5% to £750,000, 15% to £1.5 million and 17% above. There's no first-time buyer relief.'s higher rates add £15,450 on a £300,000 home, with a similar 3-year refund but different time limits for claiming. See Stamp duty on a buy-to-let and the stamp duty calculator.

On our example, £15,000 is about 3.1 years of what the house earns after tax for a basic-rate landlord. If you sell within 3 years, it comes back. If you plan to keep letting for good, it's a real cost of letting.

What do I need to do before a tenant moves in?

In England, the law requires a gas safety check, an electrical safety report, an energy certificate rated E or better, and working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. You must check the tenant's right to rent, protect their deposit within 30 days and give them the tenancy's terms in writing.

• Insurance. It isn't the law, but home insurance usually doesn't cover a let home and lenders want buildings cover. Get landlord cover.
• A leasehold flat. Read the lease: it may need the freeholder's permission to sublet.
• Gas. A Gas Safe registered engineer checks every gas appliance and flue each year. The tenant gets a copy before they move in.
• Electrics. A qualified electrician inspects the wiring at least every 5 years.
• Energy. The home needs an energy performance certificate rated E or better. The government has said the minimum will rise to C for all tenancies by 1 October 2030.
• Alarms. A smoke alarm on every storey with a room people live in, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed boiler, fire or stove (gas cookers aside), working on the day the tenancy starts.
• Right to rent. Check that every adult who'll live there has the right to rent in the UK, before the tenancy starts.
• The deposit. Put it in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of taking it, and give the tenant the scheme's details.
• Registering. A new database of private landlords opens on 15 December 2026, area by area, starting in the West Midlands. Every landlord letting a home in England must be registered by 14 November 2027.

Wales has its own system. You must register with Rent Smart Wales, and either get a licence yourself (with training) or use a licensed agent. Tenants have occupation contracts, and you must give them a written statement of the contract within 14 days of moving in.

Tool for this step: NestInsights Pro emails you before a gas safety certificate, electrical report, energy certificate or the insurance runs out.

Should I use a letting agent?

If you've moved away, or don't want calls about a broken boiler, a fully managed agent does it all for a share of the rent: 10% in our example, and often 15% to 20%. A let-only agent finds and checks the tenant for a one-off fee and leaves the rest to you. Managing it yourself costs only your time, but every legal duty above is then yours. Tenants can't be charged fees, so the agent's fees are all yours, and they come off the rent for tax. Letting agent fees: let-only or full management? compares what each costs.

How is rent from my old home taxed?

The rent, less your allowable costsAllowable expensesCosts of letting the property, such as agent fees, repairs, insurance, service charge and ground rent, which come off the rent before tax. They must be 'wholly and exclusively' for the letting. Improvements and paying off the mortgage don't count; mortgage interest gets the Section 24 tax credit instead., is added to your other income and taxed at your rates. Mortgage interest isn't taken off; you get a 20% tax credit on it instead. If the rent is more than £1,000 a year, you need to tell HMRC.

• Costs you can claim include the agent, repairs, insurance, the safety checks and the service charge. Work to get the home ready can be a repair, which you can claim, or an improvement, which only counts when you sell: see Allowable expenses for landlords.
• The tax return. Rent of up to £2,500 after costs (and under £10,000 before them) can be reported by contacting HMRC. Above that you need a Self AssessmentSelf AssessmentHMRC's yearly tax return, where landlords report their rent and costs. Register by 5 October after your first tax year with rent, then file and pay online by 31 January. return: register by 5 October after the tax year if you don't already send one. For how the bill is worked out, see Tax on rental income. Do landlords need an accountant? covers getting help with it.
• Making Tax Digital. If your rent plus any self-employed income is more than £50,000 a year (from April 2026), £30,000 from April 2027 or £20,000 from April 2028, you also keep digital records and send HMRC updates every quarter. See Making Tax Digital for landlords.
• Moving abroad. If you'll live outside the UK for 6 months a year or more, your letting agent, or your tenant if the rent is over £100 a week, must take basic-rate tax off the rent unless HMRC approves you to be paid in full (form NRL1i). You still fill in a tax return.
• A lodger instead. If you stay and let a room, the rent can be tax-free under the rent a room scheme.

Tool for this step: the rental income tax calculator works out the tax at your own income.

What happens to capital gains tax when I sell?

While it was your home, the gain is tax-free. The time it's let isn't, so part of the gain becomes taxable, but the last 9 months you own it always count as lived in. Sell within 9 months of moving out and there's usually no tax at all.

Say you bought our example home for £140,000, plus £6,000 of buying costs, lived in it for 6 years, let it for 4 years and then sold it for £180,000. 67.5% of the £30,000 gain is tax-free, leaving £9,750 taxable. That's £1,620 of capital gains tax for a higher-rate taxpayer and £1,215 for a basic-rate one, due within 60 days of the sale. Private residence relief on a former home you now let works through how the share grows each year you let, and the time away that still counts as living there.

Tool for this step: the capital gains tax calculator works out the tax on a sale, including the years you lived there.

Can I get my house back if I want to sell or move in?

Yes, but it takes time. Since 1 May 2026, private tenancies in England have no end date and section 21 "no-fault" notices are gone. To sell, or to move back in yourself or for a close family member, you give 4 months' notice, which can't end in the first 12 months of the tenancy.

If you take the home back to sell or live in, you can't let it, or advertise it to let, for 12 months after the date in your notice. If the tenant won't leave, you need a court order, so you can't count on a set date. If you know you're coming back within a year or two, weigh that up before you let.

In Wales, you can't give notice in the first 6 months, and notice to end a periodic contract is at least 6 months.

Can I live in my buy-to-let property?

Not while it has a buy-to-let mortgage. They're lent on the basis that you'll let the home, and most don't allow you or your family to live there. If you want to move back in, tell your lender first: it may give you time to switch to a residential mortgage, which it will size on your income, not the rent. For tax, the time you live there again counts as lived in when you sell.

Common questions

Rules checked against GOV.UK by hand on 31 October 2026. Example figures from our calculator, on the rules in force today. Not financial or tax advice: check your own case with an accountant.